Who's On First?: WVU vs William & Mary

It’s almost fall! That means the days are getting shorter, the air is getting crisper, and the internet is fighting about candy corn and pumpkin flavored things. (My official position is that candy corn is disgusting and pumpkin is for pie, bread, cookies, etc, not coffee, and most certainly not beer.) But more importantly, it’s time for FOOTBALL!

WVU plays their first game of the season against William & Mary on Saturday. For some schools, the season has already started. The beautiful sounds of cheering and helmets smacking were coming from my TV last night. As soon as my husband turned the TV on, our daughter came running into the room, pointed at the TV, and yelled “Football!” while jumping up and down. That’s my girl.

Now, let’s talk about the depth chart. If you’re a football newbie, the depth chart just means who is playing at what position, and whether they are starters or back-ups.

Offense

Right now there are two major stories in WVU land: Who the heck is going to be the starting quarterback and what the heck is going with Andrew Buie?

WVU released a depth chart Sunday night listing Clint Trickett OR Paul Millard (both juniors) at quarterback. Redshirt freshman Ford Childress has fallen to third. I’m not sure if Coach Holgorsen is just trying to keep our opponents guessing, or if he truly hasn’t made a decision. Trickett is a transfer from Florida State (for which he scores major points from me. If you defect from a team I hate, I automatically love you) and while he’s a very good quarterback, he’s not used to WVU’s up-tempo, no-huddle offense. Paul Millard was Geno Smith’s back-up last year, so he’s familiar with WVU’s style, but he’s still relatively inexperienced. My money is on Trickett ultimately winning the starting position.

Coach Holgorsen announced in a press conference this week that Andrew Buie was going to redshirt this season because he needed this year “to develop mentally and physically, and we’re going to leave it at that”. Now, when anyone says “we’re going to leave it at that” you better believe there’s more to the story. Buie is a junior, and led the team in rushing last season. To be fair, that statistic is a little misleading. He had one phenomenal game, a few decent games, and the rest were totally meh. That being said, it’s pretty unheard of to redshirt a junior. Last night, WVU confirmed that Buie has withdrawn and is presumably transferring to another school.

Austin, Bailey, and Woods left some pretty big shoes to fill and all I see on the depth chart are a bunch of names I don’t recognize. Transfers, freshman, and returning players that have never started a game. Gulp.

Defense

WVU’s defense was the worst in the league at allowing points per game last season, so I guess there’s nowhere to go but up? Right? The good news here is WVU is returning 15 players, and there is only one starter on the depth chart who has never started a game before.

Special Teams

WVU struggled with all things kicking last year, it looks like we’re going to be struggling again, and we’re going to leave it at that. (See what I did there?)

Gossip

Coach Holgorsen was cited with “hazardous driving” after a minor fender bender in Morgantown last week. He apparently rear-ended another vehicle during morning rush hour. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess he was either 1) texting on his phone or 2) tailgating, and not the fun, pre-game kind. After all, Holgorsen does have an itty-bitty anger management problem. Just ask his headset.

William & Mary

We haven’t played William & Mary since 1972, but we’ve won 15 out of 16 match-ups against them (one game ended in a tie). At the risk of jinxing it, I expect this to be an easy win for WVU. It’s a home game against a non-conference team who has never beaten us.